The Naked Truth

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a lovely event last night. It was a beautiful venue and great food, lots of people I haven’t seen in a while, and I really enjoyed myself. Several people mentioned that they were enjoying my blog, which was nice.

I have one friend who has great ideas for blog topics, which I appreciate. When I walked in last night she grabbed me right away and pointed out the very fancy, trés modern chandeliers. She felt I could do something funny with that and I think I may disappoint. It reminded me of when my mom expects me to be funny on demand. She tells all her friends I’m really funny, and then when I see them she gets all excited and says “Go ahead, be funny! Do one of your funny things!” And she continues to tell her friends that they should be ready for a big laugh. I stand there with a blank face because obviously if I have to concentrate and try to be funny, I’m not. I end up desperately looking around for something funny…and frankly, my eyes frequently land on my mom. So if I have to make fun of my mom to make her happy, so be it, no problemo.

I enjoyed myself so much last night because we didn’t stop laughing the whole evening. One friend regaled us with a story about her high school reunion, where she accidentally grabbed her friend’s name tag because they had the same puffy hairdo in high school and the badge photos looked similar. As the night wore on she started getting really concerned because whenever anyone said “Remember the time we ____” she absolutely positively couldn’t remember. A guy was reminiscing about their super-hot date and she was thinking that she must have had a lot to drink that night because she definitely didn’t remember their evening of romance. Later in the evening we meandered on to the topic of high school sports and had a show of hands as to who was on the field playing a sport v. who was behind the field smoking pot. I’d say it was about a 50/50 split, but rest assured no one inhaled.

Next were unexpected naked people stories, which was a surprisingly popular subject. I was alarmed to discover how many people have innocently gone to bars, parties and routine places only to find…(dum dum da dum)…naked people. I think most of us know by now that any randomly naked group of people is always a group of people no one wants to see naked. Letting it all hang out is not attractive for most people over the age of 30. Frankly, it’s pretty bad for a lot of under 30s too.

One friend reported that she and her husband were enjoying a relaxing vacation, and heard what they thought was live music in a bar, so they went inside. The bar was upstairs (never a good sign) and sadly there was no live band, just a DJ. But they sat down and ordered some wine and then slowly realized that the room was chock full of ugly naked people. They had to play it cool though, sophisticated, the sure we wander into naked bars all the time hipsters. It’s all well and good until naked people start sitting on bar stools and whatnot; naked people really need to stand, not sit. And when a naked man suddenly plopped down very close to her husband they were done playing it cool-time to guzzle and run.

I had to chime in with my story about being in St. Petersburg on a warm, sunny day (the Russians get about three of those a year); everyone piling outside, stripping naked and covering the riverbanks like beached whales. I have no room to talk because I too am blindingly white and don’t exactly have a perfect figure, but then again I don’t go flopping my naked butt next to a river. There were other really good stories that I didn’t manage to retain for even one night, so you’re just going to have to trust me when I tell you that after a few cocktails, everybody has a weird naked people story. I do remember one other story, but my blog is rated R, and the story slips into an R-/X+ rating.

What a night! And I’m proud to say we’re not ugly, and we weren’t naked.